This article was published on May 22, 2019

The privacy-focused Tor browser is now officially on Android


The privacy-focused Tor browser is now officially on Android

After a long wait, privacy-focused browser Tor is finally on Android with a stable release. Last September, the Tor project team launched an alpha version to test the waters, but according to a new blog post, the browser is finally ready for action:

Mobile browsing is increasing around the world, and in some parts, it is commonly the only way people access the internet. In these same areas, there is often heavy surveillance and censorship online, so we made it a priority to reach these users.

The post noted that the browser might have some features missing from the desktop version, but it already has cross-site tracking prevention mechanism and defense against fingerprinting attacks (a type of attack to sniff web traffic without breaking encryption).

Tor browser – built on Firefox’s base – uses a network of servers to hide your identity from the website you’re visiting. To do that, it bounces off requests through intermediate computers (relays) before reaching the destination. Plus, it encrypts the data, so that no one can intercept it between relays. Because of this approach, there are no traces left on the sites you visit. 

I’ve used Tor for desktop before, and it’s really handy when you want to browse privately. So, I’ll recommend you to give the Android version a go.

You can download the browser for your Android phone here.

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